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“Hey, ” he lazily greeted me, his eyes barely slivers through squinted lids as he exhaled his ganja smoke.

I shut the door and shrugged out of my jacket before nodding to the fluffy white lines of snow he’d arranged on a little rectangular mirror. “You started the party without me? ”

“Just thought I’d get the sample ready in advance. ” He sat up and butted the joint in the crystal ashtray on the corner of his desk, and then started shuffling the ledgers before him.

Scott Christopher was my business partner, though for my part it was silent. Foreplay belonged to him, but I provided the financial backing and most of the clientele for his trade business. Two trades, to be exact: sex and drugs. Scarlet Lotus was my main source of income, but the auction and cocaine padded my pockets. Nicely, I might add.

Fuck those amateur pimps and dealers on the streets. That was nothing more than chump change. We catered to the elite.

Although I had a solid investment in his dealings, the only reason Scott was able to attract the rich and powerful was through me. Nose candy was the hang-up for a lot of well-to-do types, and I had my finger in the punch bowl on that one. An entrepreneur like Scott would never be able to approach men of the same caliber as the ones with whom I associated. Many of my business luncheons and hobnobbing with clients and prospective investors for Scarlet Lotus provided me with a little side action to boot. My promise of discretion was what brought the big fish in for a nibble. Once they sampled the goods, their business was hook, line, and sinker. They only managed to go deeper inside after that, securing a bit of pussy to satisfy their needs in whatever way their pervy hearts desired. We had a little something for everyone.

The cherry on top was that I knew all of their secrets. I smiled in their faces, shook their hands, and patted them on the back. But at the end of the day, I’d stab them in it if push ever came to shove and mine was against a wall. The need for contracts meant there was a paper trail, proof of their scandalous behavior. However risky those documents were, our clients considered it a worthwhile liability in exchange for the goods. I considered it a surefire bet they’d be team David when I made my move to take Scarlet Lotus for my own.

I loved my fucking life.

“And how are the numbers looking on our other venture? ” I hung my jacket on the coat rack and walked over to test the sample of coke for myself.

Bending over the desk, I took the straw and put the tip to my nose and the other end at the base of one of the sculptured lines. Once I closed my other nostril with a finger, I shut my eyes and inhaled the superior white powder. Although it felt like fine sand being shot up my nose, the cut was so pure there was no burn, only an immediate numbing and the high that would make Mighty Mouse feel like the Incredible Hulk.

I slowly opened my eyes as the sensation took the fast track through the rest of my body. “Oh yeah, baby. That’s the good shit right there. ”

On a normal day, I’d feel like I could take on the world. Put a little of the devil’s dandruff up my nose, and I knew I could not only take on the world, but the universe as well. The rich and powerful craved that feeling, became addicted to it. Given our clientele, it was no surprise our hugely successful and highly profitable cocaine biz was the envy of street dealers the world over.

I took a seat and propped my feet on the corner of Scott’s desk. He looked irritated, but he wouldn’t say shit about it. “So, the numbers on the auction? ”

“Spectacular, thanks to the virgin on the block, but that’s nothing compared to my other news. ” His face lit up with a devious smile. “I’ve got an interesting bit of information for you. ”

I arched a brow at him because he was acting like a man who suddenly knew all the answers in life and was about to make me a deal I wouldn’t refuse. “Is that right? Do tell. ”

“How about if I just show you? ” He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a manila folder that he slid across the desk.

I chuckled when I saw the name Delaine Talbot written in red on the tab.

I could practically see that sexy little smirk on her face from the Scarlet Lotus Ball when she’d torn me down. It gave me some serious wood. I knew word of mouth had been spreading among our customers and their colleagues, so I got pretty fucking curious as to the reason Scott would be holding a folder with my future conquest’s name on it. I flipped it open and scanned the singular document inside.

A satisfied smile crept over my face when I scanned what appeared to be a contract promising two years of Delaine’s life to one Noah P. Crawford. “Well, fuck me. Noah, Noah, Noah, ” I tsked.

“Thought you might like that, ” Scott said with a self-satisfied grin.

“Why didn’t you tell me this was going down? ”

“I didn’t know he’d be here. He’s smart. When he called in, he did it anonymously. Wouldn’t give me his name, only a number and a very particular interest. A virgin. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever hear from him again because the odds of finding a virgin desperate enough to put her innocence on the menu are nil to none. And then Delaine Talbot, ” he said with a wave of his hand toward the folder I was holding like it was the holy grail because it fucking was, “signed up on the day before the auction.

“I called him up, and he told me he might make the auction and that I should reserve a room for him just in case. Imagine my surprise when Noah Crawford walked through those doors. ”

“Yeah, I bet. ” I laughed as Noah’s signature stared back at me, right alongside Delaine’s.

I closed the folder and pushed it back across the desk. It took everything in me to do it, but at least I knew where the contract was and had access to it at any time. Scott would never hand it over to me to use in my conquest to blackmail Crawford into giving up his half of Scarlet Lotus. That would be too risky for the rest of his business. All of it: the auction and the coke. Not to mention his suppliers and the power players involved in every aspect would get twitchy if they thought he’d gotten sloppy and their dirty deeds were in danger of being exposed. It was best not to spook them.

I just needed to figure out a way to make my newfound knowledge work in my favor without risking life and limb in the process.

“If you decide to tell Noah you know, you keep my name out of your mouth, ” Scott said, putting the folder back in his desk. “And if he figures it out, you better make damn sure you give me a heads-up so that I can clean house. I mean it, Stone. These people I deal with do not play well with others. ”

“You worry too much, Scotty. Crawford isn’t about to step into a light that is unfavorable to him. Besides, I’m pretty sure I know how to get what I want without bringing you down in the process. ”

I wasn’t confident my plan would work, but the important thing was that I had finally won. What had happened between Noah and me back at the office earlier that morning was my word against his. And although I would have had a valid case and would have thoroughly enjoyed dragging his name through the mud, there was no way I could prove what had happened. But this? There was just no denying this. I had it all in writing.

Scarlet Lotus was as good as mine.

Lanie

Why were hospital rooms always so cold? It was like death’s cruel hand had reached in and stolen all the warmth out of the place. No matter how warm and inviting the hospital attempted to make the room that was likely going to be the last your loved one would ever see, the realization that someone you cared about was in their last days, hours, or even minutes made the dé cor irrelevant. And then there was the smell: chemicals mixed with bodily fluids, sickness, and death. It made it too real, and I wanted to run away as fast as I could, find Noah, and just not deal with the very real possibility that I was going to lose my mother. But I couldn’t. For one, I would never forgive myself if these were in fact her final hours and I wasn’t there, and second, Noah had rejected me. Besides, it would be like running away from one problem only to have to face another that might have been every bit as hopeless. I was where I needed to be.

As much a part of my family as I was, Dez was right by my side, as was Polly. Thank goodness she had thought to bring me something warmer than the little red slut attire I’d had on before. My father would have probably keeled over with a heart attack and ended up in a hospital bed next to my mother if he’d seen me in that getup. So there I stood, looking out the window, dressed in a little black sweater dress and black boots. Nothing elaborate, nothing sexy. In fact, it was sort of depressing, but it matched the way I felt on the inside. My heart, vacant and hollow, was still mourning the loss of Noah, but my soul was worried that the bleak blackness covering my body was actually an omen of something even more morbid to come, like the loss of my mother. As devastating as it was to lose the only man I would probably ever love, losing my mother would make it incredibly hard to find the will to live.

The cold spot I felt in the cavern of my chest amplified tenfold with that thought, like the cold of the room had somehow seeped its way into my heart. My mother was my best friend. Always had been. Not the same kind of friend as Dez, or even the same kind of friend Polly had become. My mother was something more. She knew me better than anyone else because I was a living extension of her. That woman could tell what I was thinking or feeling without me having to say a word. And with more experience under her belt, she knew what I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it, and made me listen even if I didn’t want to. Most children hated to admit it, but my mom was right nearly a hundred percent of the time. So to never see her warm smile again, never hear her infectious laughter, never feel the warm comfort of her embrace, never smell her white musk scent … I couldn’t even fathom the thought.

“Lanie? You want some coffee? ” my father asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

I turned and gave him a halfhearted smile. That was Mack’s way. His wife was dying and he couldn’t do anything to stop the inevitable, so he found something or someone else to take care of instead. I accepted his offering, noting the thinness of his face. His eyes had dark rings under them, and judging from the almost full beard he was sporting, he obviously hadn’t shaved in quite some time. I knew lecturing him about taking better care of himself wouldn’t do any good, so I let it go.

Looking down at her sleeping form, I clutched the paper cup to my chest in hopes that it might warm the chill in my heart. Realistically, the only thing that would make me feel better would be my mother’s full recovery, although the cocoon of Noah’s arms around me while his reassuring voice promised everything was going to be okay probably would have helped. I missed him, and I desperately wished he was here with me, but fate had apparently had other plans for us. Funny how things had worked out. Noah had released me from our contract just in time for me to watch my mother die and be able to stay home and take care of my dad for what would surely be a miserable existence without his wife at his side. I wondered if the life of sin I had partaken in with Noah had actually caused karma to swing back around to give me a swift kick in the ass.

“Mr. Talbot? ” a familiar voice called from the doorway. I looked up to see a tall brown-haired doctor retrieve a pen from the pocket of his white lab coat and begin to scribble on the clipboard he’d had tucked under his arm. “Hello, I’m Dr. Daniel Crawford, and I’ll be conducting the surgery and taking over as the attending physician for your wife. If it’s okay with you, that is? ”

Daniel Crawford. Noah’s hunky uncle. My heart might have sighed a bit at the sight of him. From relief, not longing. There was only one Crawford man I longed for, and he wasn’t present. Another fact that made my heart sigh for a second time.

Daniel looked at my father and then glanced at me with a warm, knowing smile before looking back to Mack again.

Under normal circumstances, my mother would have been the one to make the decision about her health care, but she had been heavily sedated since her arrival. Her regular doctor had assured us that the sedation made her more comfortable and decreased the likelihood that she would get too excited, thereby overexerting her already weakened heart. So that left Mack to make all of her medical decisions. I think the doctors and nurses on staff were relieved that it wasn’t me. I might have been a bit in their face when we first arrived, demanding results, demanding they get off their asses and do their job, demanding they save my mother’s life. Dez and Polly had done their best to get me to calm down, but ultimately, it was the threat by the rent-a-cop security staff that they would remove me from the premises that finally got me to back off.

“Taking over? What about Dr. Johnson? ” my father asked Daniel.

“Dr. Johnson is incompetent, ” I said. Seeing the disapproving scowl from my father, I added, “What? He is. ”

I heard a faint chuckle from Daniel as he checked my mother’s vitals.

“See? Dr. Crawford agrees. ”

Mack rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at my mother. “I don’t know about changing her doctor at this stage in the game. ”

“This isn’t a game, Dad, ” I said out loud, which was totally unfair of me. I knew he didn’t think of it that way, but I was frustrated, not that it excused my inappropriate comment. My father didn’t hold it against me, though, because he was feeling the same way.

“I assure you, I am very qualified, ” Daniel broke in, slipping his pen back into his breast pocket. “I run the cardiac department here and have performed numerous heart transplants—”

“Wait a minute, ” I interrupted his list of accomplishments, all of them very great, I was sure. He was a Crawford and greatness probably ran in their bloodline, but there was one teeny-tiny detail—which was actually mega-important—from his earlier introduction that had just hit me. “What surgery? ”

My mother had been in intensive care after having coded in the emergency room and then been brought back to fight for her life another day. As far as we knew, that was where she would remain until either a miracle happened and she showed marked improvement and we took her home, or … didn’t. I had tried to pull every string I could to get her a new heart, now that we had the money for the procedure, but it hadn’t mattered because there were too many people on the list ahead of her: proof of Dr. Johnson’s incompetence and lack of pull.

Daniel gave us a genuine smile. “We have a donor, Delaine. ” Apparently he remembered my name from the Scarlet Lotus Ball, where I’d made a complete jackass of myself by not speaking to him—not one word. It had been my way of throwing a very childlike tantrum in response to Noah’s order not to speak to any men at the party.

“A d-donor? ” my father stuttered, an apprehensive smile drawing up the corner of his mouth. I could tell he was trying hard not to get excited, like he didn’t believe what he was hearing. Truthfully, it was hard for me to believe as well, but I had a feeling Noah Crawford might have had something to do with it. I was certain he had everything to do with the fact that his uncle, a world-renowned cardiologist, was standing in the room at that very second. It hadn’t dawned on me before that when Noah found out about my mother he would have gone to work behind the scenes trying to ensure that she got the best possible care. He’d already unknowingly contributed two million dollars toward that, and there he was, contributing family members as well. Once again, he was showing his love for me, and I still had no way to prove that I reciprocated his feelings.

“Yes, well, we are a transplant center here, and given Mrs. Talbot’s condition, she is a priority case, ” Daniel explained. “We had a potential donor, and as soon as we got the lab work back, we knew we had a match. Now, there’s little more than paperwork to do, and the actual procedure, of course. ”

“She’s getting a new heart. …” My father looked dazed.

I thought about Noah again, and again I wished he was here. I needed him here. My mother might have been getting a new heart, but mine was still broken. I highly doubted they were running a two-for-one special.

“Yes, she is. ” Daniel cleared his throat as a nurse, who looked sort of like Betty Boop with blond hair, walked in. “Mr. Talbot, if you’ll just follow Sandra, she’ll help you with the paperwork and we can get started. Delaine, ” he said, nodding his farewell with a warm smile.

“Hell yeah! Mama Talbot’s gonna live! ” Dez did a fist pump in the air, earning a scowl from my father. “Oh, um, sorry, ” she said with an embarrassed giggle. She stood and draped her purse over her shoulder. “I don’t know about y’all, but all this excitement’s made me hungry. I guess I’m going to head down to the cafeteria and grab some hospital slop. If I’m not back in half an hour, check the ER, and I’m not saying that because of the Latino god of an orderly down there, either. Although I just might have to fake a pelvis injury to get him to check me out after I get my belly full. Anyone wanna come with? ”

Polly’s phone chirped, signaling a message, and I glanced at her, noting the way she frowned before putting her coffee down and saying, “I’ll go. I need to check in with Mason anyway. ” Part of me wondered if that meant she would be checking in with Noah as well, but that might have been wishful thinking on my part.

Mack came over to me and put his arm around my shoulders. “You going to be okay here by yourself while I go do this paperwork? ”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll stay with her. ” I looked at my mother’s sleeping form. The circles under her eyes were even more prominent than the ones under my father’s, and she was much thinner than even he. I felt guilty that I’d been living in a mansion fit for a king, and that said king had been coaxing my inner sexual goddess out to play, while the two people who meant the most to me had been suffering. I should’ve been there for them.

“Hey, she’s getting a new heart, a chance to really live again. She’s going to be okay, and the second they give the all-clear, I want your ass back at school to get that degree. You hear me? No moping around now. ”

“Sure, Dad. Whatever you say. ” I laughed lightly as he hugged me to his side and then followed the nurse out. He was going to be so disappointed when he found out that I hadn’t actually been enrolled at college, and I had no clue how to hide it from him. I probably should’ve figured that out before I told the lie, but you know what they say about hindsight.

I sat in the chair next to my mother’s bed and took her hand in mine. Her skin was cold and had a grayish tint to it but still soft. I noticed that her nail polish was chipped, and I reminisced about the trips to the salon she’d made me take with her before she’d gotten really sick. She’d always said she felt better when she looked good. I pictured her sickly form sitting up in her bed and painting her nails even though she knew she was in no shape to go anywhere where someone besides my father might actually see them. Perhaps she even had my father do it. I laughed inwardly at that picture.

“Hey, Mom, ” I said quietly to her sleeping form. “You’re getting a new heart. Yay! ” I mimed shaking pom-poms in the air, a goofy smile on my face. Then seriousness took over. “But before you do, and while you’re out like a light and won’t really hear anything I’m saying, I have something I want to talk to you about.

“See, I met this guy, and he’s wonderful. His name is Noah Crawford. ” I rolled my eyes, knowing the reaction she would’ve had to that if she’d been conscious. “Yes, the Noah Crawford. Don’t let the money and his gorgeous face fool you; he can be a real prick, but that’s one of the things that makes him so wonderful. So anyway, we’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and last night he told me he loves me. ” My mother would’ve squealed at that point.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, ” I said with another roll of my eyes, even though she couldn’t actually see me. “Here’s the thing, though … this morning, he pretty much told me to get the hell out of his life. I have a feeling he did it because he thinks he knows what’s best for me. Men, right? I guess I knew all along that an actual relationship working out between a billionaire and a simple girl from Hillsboro would be nothing short of a fairy tale, and fairy tales simply don’t come true. The problem is that Noah makes me feel like maybe they can. I mean, he told me he loves me, so despite my fears, I started to believe things really could work out between us. Only I never got the chance to say how I feel about him. ” I buried my face in my mother’s shoulder and sighed. “I can’t stand the fact that he doesn’t know, which can really be even more torturous because there’s not really anything I can do about it. That’s not exactly something you say in a text message or over the phone, right? No, it’s gotta be face-to-face. But the problem is, his face isn’t here and I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to see it again. You gotta help me, Mom, because I have no clue what to do. ”

“My face is here now, ” a familiar voice said from the doorway. My head snapped up, and I turned in his direction. He was there, looking like he’d stepped out of the pages of a magazine. Leaning against the door frame with his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, his words oozed with all his sexy gruff. “Tell me, Delaine. How do you feel about me? ”

Noah

I’d overheard every word she had said. It wasn’t that I was trying to eavesdrop; I just didn’t want to interrupt the moment she was having with her mother. I’d even turned to walk away, but when I heard my name, human nature took over and I stuck around because some masochistic part of me needed to hear how much she hated me. What I’d heard hadn’t sounded anything like hate, but I wasn’t about to make an even bigger ass out of myself by trying to figure it out for myself either.

Delaine looked at me, stunned, but she didn’t answer my question. She didn’t say anything, in fact. What she did do was leap to her feet and run to where I stood. I righted myself in the nick of time to catch her when she jumped into my arms. Her lips crashed against mine, her pliant body molding to my hard planes as she kissed me like it had been months since we had last seen each other rather than hours.

“Hey, hey, hey, ” I got out between the onslaught of kisses. I could taste the salt of tears that had dropped onto her lips. She was full-on crying and shaking uncontrollably, so I tucked her head into the crook of my neck and held her tight. “It’s okay. I’m here now, kitten. Everything’s going to be okay. ”

“My dad can’t see me like this, Noah. He still doesn’t know anything about you or what I did, and he can’t find out. He just can’t, ” she said frantically.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. ”

Polly stormed into the room like a mama bear on a mission. “Damn it, Noah! What did you do to her? Is she okay? ” Normally I’d say her tone was way out of line and I’d give her a stern talking-to, but under the circumstances I understood her abruptness. She and Delaine had grown close, and Polly was only being protective, the same way she was toward me. So I let it go.

“She will be, ” I answered. “I need to get her out of here. ”

“No! I can’t leave, ” Delaine protested through her tears, but she still wouldn’t look up.

“No, kitten. I’m not going to take you away from the hospital. I just want to take you someplace a little more private so we can talk, ” I reassured her while stroking her hair.

“Omigod, that’s Noah freakin’ Crawford! ” I looked up to see a leggy chick with a fake rack, a way too skinny waist, and a face concealed by two inches of makeup blocking my escape. She had stars in her eyes at first, and then those stars turned to daggers. If looks could have killed, I would have been murdered, cremated, and had my ashes added to compost. “Get your hands off her before I rip your balls off and shove them down your throat, you bastard! ”

“Dez, leave him alone, ” Delaine mumbled into my neck.

“Ah. Dez. You’re the best friend, ” I said, finally figuring it out. “Listen, you can make me choke on my balls later if you want—I’ll even handle my own castration—but right now I’ve got to take care of Lanie. I need to get her somewhere a little more private before her father sees her. Will you please sit with her mother until I get her calmed down? ”

She looked from Lanie back to me, then gave a reluctant nod.

I turned to Polly, still holding my million-dollar baby in my arms. Fuck the million-dollar part—I guess she was just my baby now. “Polly, for some reason I will never understand, you have a way with people. They like you. So can you stay here and run interference with her father? ”

“Roger that, ” she said with a salute and a playful wink. When Polly had a mission to accomplish, she thrived.

I left Dez and Polly to their tasks and carried Lanie down the corridor, ignoring the curious glances of hospital staff and patients alike. When I finally made it to Daniel’s office, I knocked on the door, and he called out, “Come in! ” At the sight of Lanie in my arms, he stood from his desk, his brow furrowed with concern. “Is she okay? ”

“Yes, she’s fine. I, uh … we just need a little privacy. Do you mind? ”

“Not at all. I’m due in the OR to scrub in and start the procedure anyway. ” He cleared his throat as he passed to leave. “Lock the door and no one will disturb you. ”

I set Delaine down on the couch after he left, but when I tried to pull away, she grabbed my arms and looked up at me pleadingly. “No, please don’t leave me. ”

“I’m not going anywhere, Lanie. I promise. I’m just going to lock the door, okay? ”

She nodded and reluctantly released her hold. I quickly went to the door and turned the bolt before stopping by the mini refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. “Here, drink this, ” I said, removing the top and handing it to her.

She took a tiny sip and then set it on the table. I’d no sooner sat down beside her than she was crawling into my lap and laying her head on my shoulder. She was still shaking and quite visibly upset, and I had no idea how to calm her down.

“Shh, it’s okay, baby. Everything’s going to be okay now, ” I said, rubbing her back and kissing the top of her head. “What’s got you so upset? Talk to me. ”

“Oh, God, Noah, it’s not okay. She’s dying. Or at least she was dying, but now your uncle says they have a donor, and I was such a bitch to him at the ball. But all I knew was that she was dying and Dez came to get me and I had to get here, and I was scared to death that I wouldn’t get here fast enough. I didn’t want to leave you, but I had to. And I needed you here, but you weren’t because you ran away from me this morning and I was so pissed at you. I wanted to yell at you. I wanted to smack you upside your beautiful, stupid head and you weren’t there, but you weren’t here, either. And I still kind of want to yell at you and punch you, but I can’t because you’re here now and I just want to be in your arms. You left me. …”

She was hyperventilating and ranting incoherently at the same time, and the tears were back in full force, but I understood every word she’d said. She was upset and scared, and I hadn’t been there when she needed me the most. She was right: I was stupid. And she had way too fucking much on her plate to have to deal with my shit on top of it.

“I know, kitten. I’m sorry, ” I said, and I fucking meant it. “I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere until you tell me you don’t want me here anymore. ”

“Good. Because I swear to God, Noah Patrick Crawford, if you leave me again, I’m going to be the one holding you down while Dez cuts your balls off, ” she said, and then there were more tears.

I sat there with her, rocking her back and forth while she got it all out. Her tears, her rants, her frustrations, her sadness, all of it. After a while she grew quiet, and at first I thought she’d fallen asleep, but then she looked up at me through swollen eyes and smiled. I kissed the tip of her little nose, tinged pink from her crying, before returning her smile.